DHS, ICE Must 'Restore Trust' After Deaths of Good, Pretti, Rand Paul Says on Minneapolis Shootings

Homeland Security chair and Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul asked the questions, 'Who can you kill?' and 'when can you kill them?' last week, following the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in US President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. Good and Pretti were shot dead by Department of Homeland Security officers in Minnesota in January.

In a CBS exclusive, Paul expressed his distrust of the Trump administration's investigation after top officials did not tell the truth. Paul said of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who referred to Alex Pretti as a 'terrorist' who allegedly 'attacked' the federal officers, 'I saw no evidence. I saw a man that was retreating. I mean, he went to the middle of the street. He didn't even obstruct traffic. He let a car go through. As the agents advanced on him, he retreated to the side of the street. A woman is violently pushed to the ground, and he turns to help her, and that's when he is grabbed from behind. I saw no evidence of him assaulting the police.'​

Senator Paul also addressed Stephen Miller, Trump's advisor, on calling Pretti an assassin, 'It sounds like terrible judgment. I mean, terrible conclusions, incorrect conclusions, stating things that no one else believes. You can lie to your heart's content if there's no video. But the video doesn't support what they're saying.'

Minneapolis and the Immigration Crackdown

On 7 January in Minnesota, ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Good when she was blocking the street. On the same day, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Good was a terrorist.

According to Noem, 'It was an act of domestic terrorism. What happened was our ICE officers were out in an enforcement action. They got stuck in the snow because of the adverse weather that is in Minneapolis. They were attempting to push out their vehicle, and a woman attacked them and those surrounding them and attempted to run them over and ram them with her vehicle.'

Good's death fuelled nationwide rage. A little over two weeks later, on 24 January, 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti was gunned down, leading to his death, by ICE agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer Raymundo Gutierrez, for carrying a licensed firearm, in an altercation Sam Trepel said had no 'clear reason for the use of force.'​

Trepel, who investigated the police shootings for the US Justice Department, said, 'For one thing-- when the federal agent pushes the woman that Mr. Pretti was helping. it's not clear from the video why that would be justified. There's the-- spraying of a chemical agent on Mr. Pretti and the woman he was trying to help. And the justification for that isn't clear either.'​

Sam Trepel, a Department of Justice Civil Rights Division prosecutor until last year, said the department has lost a huge chunk of its attorneys. The Civil Rights Division, according to Trepel, says a civil rights investigation for the Renee Good killing provided 'no basis.'​

She said, 'What's really different and striking here is that the federal government appears to be shutting the state investigators out completely. And that's very unusual and, in fact, unprecedented, in my experience.'​

Senator Paul said the situation will need to improve to restore the US citizens' trust in the Department of Homeland Security and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He said, 'I think to restore trust things are gonna have to improve. But I'm not gonna say it's all one side. I mean, Minneapolis, the mayor of Minneapolis has said explicitly he will not cooperate. That is a significant part of the problem.'